This invention relates to a dry shaver with floating peripherally supported shear plate.
In recent years, dry shavers utilizing a rotary cutting action have become very popular. Such shavers have normally included a shear plate and a rotary cutting element therebeneath for removing hairs extending through the plate. Some shavers of this type have had a fixed shear plate, while others have incorporated a floating shear plate supported centrally by the cutter member. An example of this latter type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,900,720, issued to Starre et al. on Aug. 25, 1959 and entitled "Dry Shaver with a Self Adjusting Shear Plate and Rotary Cutter."
It has always been desirable to make a dry shaver which will give the closest shave possible. The closeness of the shave has been dependent on a number of factors, and especially on the thinness of the shear plate. Over the years, various improvements in technology have made it possible to manufacture shear plates of increasingly thinner gauge materials, and the quality of shaving results has thus gradully improved.
However, it has been found that extremely thin floating shear plates do not always give completely satisfactory results. This is believed partially due to the fact that their sole support has been the centrally disposed cutter blade. While it would not be particularly difficult to provide additional support for a fixed shear plate, to the knowledge of the inventors no way has previously been found to give extra support to a floating shear plate to prevent undesirable flexing thereof.
In addition, previous dry rotary shaver head structures, such as in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 2,900,720, have had certain other disadvantages. For example, disassembly of the head portion of the shaver has usually freed the cutting member and shear plate so they could easily fall out.